Brackets for securing shelves horizontally to a wall are well known in the prior art, as for example those described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,299,367 and 4,871,136. No conventional shelf bracket or mounting means has been available, however, in which the rear edge of the shelf can be mounted flush against the wall with the mounting means totally concealed and with the shelf readily removable simply by lifting and withdrawing it away from the wall.
Various forms of mounting means are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,460,146 which allow a bracket secured to a shelf to fit over and behind the head of a screw projecting from the wall but in that disclosure the bracket is either interposed between the shelf and the wall to prevent the shelf from being mounted flush against the wall or the bracket is quite visible on the underside of the shelf or in the angle between the shelf and the wall. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,398,691 a wall bracket is disclosed in which a deformable annulus around the head of a screw projecting from a wall is inserted into a cavity in the rear edge of the shelf. However, an elastic hook on that annulus is snapped into a step in the cavity and cannot be released from the shelf without the use of a special tool.
The principal object of the present invention is to provide shelf mounting means which are totally concealed when the shelf is mounted, which allow the shelf to be mounted flush against the wall surface and which permit easy removal simply by lifting the shelf and then displacing it horizontally away from the wall. U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,487,446 and 3,580,535 disclose mounting bushings which are of a structure and function distinguishable from the shelf mounting means of the invention but in some respects generally related thereto.